This was published 7 years ago
Brisbane Lions v Fremantle: Frustrated Justin Leppitsch lashes out at sacking question
By Andrew Stafford
There was no hiding Lions' coach Justin Leppitsch's anger after his side's 83-point loss to Fremantle at the Gabba. "Here we go again," he said, asked whether he feared for his tenure at the club, only days after football director Leigh Matthews and CEO Greg Swann had assured his position – and he boiled over.
"Can we stop these silly questions," he said. "I'm getting a bit over it, to be perfectly honest. Why would you ask someone if they're going to keep their job? First of all if you said it to someone on the street, it's a disgusting thing to say.
Leppitsch was not happy at this team's performance or that of the media after the game.Credit: Getty Images
"Second of all, ask someone who decides it, not me. That's the answer, so stop asking me. Ask Leigh; ask Swanny. I've got a job for 18 months to do, and I'm doing it. Can we finish it right now? Done, thank you, next question."
But he couldn't duck the fact that his side had served up arguably its softest performance during his time in charge. "It was embarrassing, irrespective of anything you put in place, that was not an acceptable effort. And you could pull out 10 or 15 examples that are cringeworthy."
"The defensive pressure wasn't there. Credit to Fremantle, they're up and about, they've had two really good weeks [and] their ability to transition the ball was excellent and we couldn't do anything about that, unfortunately."
But when the time matters you have to go and commit your body and we're not doing that, not doing it consistently enough. That's really it, in a nutshell."
Asked if his players were too comfortable, he said, "I'm not sure. We had a good discussion as a playing group. They're over it, there's no doubt we have to get a level of honesty within our conversations in our club, I know that.
"You're can't win games if you're not going to do the basics well, particularly defensively."
Then he was asked if the players cared enough. "It's a difficult one … The first 10 minutes, we're three goals up and everything you're planning is going the way you want; you get a couple of punches on the chin and that's it, it's game over.
"I can't explain that. We go into our shells, and that is a terrible term to use, but you normally fight back, don't you, at some point? We're just not."
He was asked about the efforts of his leadership group in steering he development of a young team. "We ask questions about them; they have to drive it. They have to perform.
"There's a lot of pressure in leadership, unfortunately. There's a reason why you're a leader; that's because when things get hard you can actually perform, and if you can't, you're not a leader, full stop.
"So we've got to make sure that our leaders understand that too, and there's not many of them in this world, to be honest. When things get a bit tough, stick it out. So there's a lot of people around our football club who'll be tested in that area, not just playing leaders, but all of us."
Of the club's supporters, who were notably agitated during the game: "I'm sure the supporters are agitated. There is no more agitated person in any team after a loss than a senior coach, I can guarantee you that … I'm as frustrated as the fans, but my job is to fix the problems, not to complain about them."
Asked if it was as frustrated as he had been during his time as coach, he said he was disappointed and searching for answers.
"It is … You don't want to walk away saying the reason you lost is because of lack of effort, that at that key moment I didn't decide to put my head over the footy. They're poor reasons to walk away and not win [but] this is one of those games."
Asked how to turn the club's fortunes around, he said: "We have to have some hard conversations and get on with it. That's it.
"I'm sick of repeating this. We're two and a half years into this build. I watched St Kilda lose by 77 last week; my old mob I spent six years at, Richmond, lost by a big margin last week. We're going to get these games and no one likes it, but we've just got to make sure we review it well."
"I'll probably get reports that this is the worst game ever seen; well they said that about Collingwood a month ago, so I'm sure that old chestnut will come up again … I can't stop the headline writers, but it has zero relevance to what we're doing and what job we have to do."